Town Social

by Simmons, Trana Mae

  "I'm working on her. I received a new batch of sheet music in the mail the other day, and there's a couple songs in it which would be perfect for her. But she's afraid the other women in town would turn their noses up, since she's only sung in saloons."

  The lantern swinging in his hand, Jake passed her without a glance. "Tell her what a great chance it would be for her," Sunny said. "Once the women hear her they'll be enjoying themselves way too much to remember where she got her training."

  Gathering her robe around her and tightening the belt, she stalked after Jake. The smoke smell still lingered in the air, and her shoe soles crunched on the shattered glass as she approached the doorway of the Center. Inside the door she halted. The tears misting her eyes came as much from the destruction inside as the smoke-laden air.

  Jake had hung the lantern from a ceiling beam, and it threw beams even beyond the golden pool of light beneath it. Soot smeared the newly-painted walls. Cinders and flying ash pitted burns on the recently refinished table tops, and someone had left the doors open on the side cupboard, where they stored the tablecloths. Everything would have to be scrubbed once again.

  Jake was concentrating his attention on one corner of the room, kneeling beside the spot where a half-burned table lay on its side next to the ladder. She moved closer, finally able to see the lantern base amid the rubble. Saul Cravens had been right. The lantern Jake left behind had been the cause of the fire.

  Allowing her fury full rein, Sunny flared, "How could you be so incompetent? Even a child Teddy's age knows better than to leave a burning lantern unattended! I suppose your card game was more important to you than your responsibility to the citizens of this town!"

  Jake didn't respond, and she took another step forward. When he grabbed a table leg and wrenched it loose, she hastily backed up. But instead of threatening her with the table leg, he prodded at the pile of ashes in front of him. A few sparks flew up from the rubble and Jake rose, stamping out the embers before they could blaze into new flames.

  "Probably ought to pour some more water on this," Jake muttered. Brushing past her, he went out the door.

  Sunny wrapped her arms across her breasts and stared around the room. Only a few feet from the area of the fire, Fred and John Dougherty had set up two sawhorses to cut boards for the small stage the women had decided to go ahead and build at the back of the room. Piles of sawdust lay beneath the sawhorses. If the lantern had landed in them rather than where it did, the entire building would have been a roaring inferno in seconds. The nearby stack of paint cans and turpentine soaked rags the men used to clean their hands would have furnished enough other fuel to assure a rapid spread of the fire.

  Jake strode over and poured a pail of water on the rubble he'd been examining, then picked up the table leg and poked it around again.

  "Do you need any more water?" Sunny asked. "I'll be glad to go get it."

  "This ought to do it."

  He tossed the half-burned table to one side, throwing the leg after it. Pulling another table over to the same area, he removed his bandanna and used it to protect his hand while he set the lantern base in the exact center of the unburned table. He kicked the table leg once, then again, harder. The table wobbled but didn't tip, and the lantern base only moved an inch.

  Grabbing the edge of the table, Jake tipped it on its side. The lantern base skidded across the surface, landing in the rubble with a solid thunk when it hit the ladder rim.

  Realization dawned on Sunny. "Are you trying to prove that an animal couldn't have tipped over that table?"

  Jake picked up the lantern base once more. "This type of lantern has a heavy bottom. It's designed to minimize the chance of it tumbling over if it is jostled."

  He tossed the lantern down, then picked up the end of the ladder, positioning the burned side pieces on either side of the lantern base.

  "And the first thing I noticed after I got the fire out was that it looked like the ladder had been on top of the lantern when it started to burn. I can't be sure about that, but I do know I'd left that ladder propped against the wall. It's pretty damned suspicious that the ladder fell right after the table got knocked over — and the ladder landed just in the right spot to send the evidence of it being tampered with up in flames."

  ***

  Chapter 13

  "Tampered with?" Sunny hurried to his side. "What are you talking about? Do you mean someone wanted Fred to fall from that ladder?"

  "Fred, or you, or whoever happened to be climbing it when the step that was cut part way in two broke. The same step that's now burned completely up. The same step that just happened to land right on top of the flames, so it would be the first part of the ladder to burn."

  "My God," Sunny breathed. "Who would do something like that?"

  "That's my job to find out. And until I do, I'm going to have to order you to forget about working on this place."

  "I will not!" Sunny fumed. "Our plans are too far along, and we've already got a commitment from Grace Adams' manager for her to do a show here for us after her engagement in Dallas in two weeks. We've planned that for our opening. With having to repair this fire damage now, we'll barely be ready in time as it is!"

  "You may never get open at all, if you don't listen to me." Jake took her arms, shaking her slightly. "Pay attention to me, Sunny. Neither Fred's fall nor this fire were accidents. They were deliberate attempts to cause someone to get hurt and then cover up the evidence."

  Sunny tilted her head defiantly. "You don't know they were directed at the Center! There could be a grudge between someone else in town. We'll just have to be more careful and, if necessary, I'll post a guard in the building at night. The entire town is joining in to make this project happen, and I refuse to let some disgruntled person sabotage us."

  "I'll guard your damned building, Sunny, because that's part of my job. As for being careful, you bet your ass you will be. But right now's not the time to let on that we're aware of the sabotage."

  "Why not?"

  "Because...."

  Jake moved his hands to her back, tangling his fingers in her unbound hair and sweeping his thumbs back and forth, very close to the sides of her breasts. Her knees weakened, and she gripped his shirt for support.

  "W...why not?" she managed to repeat.

  "Because if whoever's doing this realizes we're on to him," Jake murmured, "he might make a more determined attempt than he has so far. And I couldn't live with myself if you ended up on the wrong side of that attempt."

  "Why not?" Sunny asked again, for a different reason.

  Inch by inch, he slowly lowered his head. "Because."

  He breathed the word more than spoke it, his breath tingling on her lips. He paused before his mouth met hers, and she waited only a second before she stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arm around his neck. His lips were warm and firm, tasting of the smoke which had filtered through his bandanna. And tasting of Jake, the only man she'd ever kissed who could send her senses reeling with his touch.

  With a muffled groan, he drew her closer. Deserting her lips, he kissed her cheek, then slid the tip of his tongue across her earlobe, into her ear. Shivers of delight crawled over her body, and her breast tips crinkled — against the front of her gown and robe.

  Oh, God. For the second time that night she was kissing this man as though she wanted to throw caution to the bowels of hell — and join it there. And this time she was a lot more appropriately attired to join him on one of those cots at the jailhouse.

  "Beautiful, so very beautiful," he murmured.

  The resulting uproar his words caused in her body scared the bejesus out of Sunny, and she twisted free, clapping her hands over her mouth and staggering back. Eyes wide and straining, she stared at him. His whiskey depths held a feral gleam and met her gaze unflinchingly, but she jerked her eyes free with extreme effort. Only — her gaze caught again on his lower lip, protruding as though in a pout of loss.

  He raised his hand. "Sunny," he said around a gr
oan.

  She shook her head wildly, and his hand dropped to his side, drawing her scrutiny with it. Beneath the gunbelt buckle, the button holes on the front of his denims stretched to a near bursting point. The two low-hanging pistols lay against his muscular thighs, the gun butts in line with the bottom button — the one most nearly ready to tear lose. It was a more erotic sight than she had ever imagined even in the suggestive dreams disturbing her sleep lately.

  Muttering a vile oath, he turned his back on her. Shoulders rigid and fists clenched beside his guns, he snarled, "Get the hell out of here while I've still got sense enough to let you go!"

  She stood stunned for what seemed like forever, unable to even force her breath to leave her lungs. Suddenly a sob tore free. Fumbling for her robe belt, she stumbled towards the doorway, eyes too misted with tears to see her way.

  "Sunny, wait!" Jake called in a tortured voice.

  Her knees hit the side of a chair and she fell forward. Arms outstretched, she landed on the chair seat, her breath whooshing out with the impact. Before she could feel any pain, he swept her up and cradled her against his chest. He sat — probably in the same darned chair that had blocked her path — and she found enough breath somewhere to shriek her rage at him.

  "Let me go!" She pounded on his chest, and when he only tightened his hold, she let fly with one fist in an uppercut as she'd seen a boxer do once in St. Louis. Jake's head snapped and he muffled a grunt, one hand instinctively lifting to his face. She grabbed the index finger on the hand still holding her, bending it back until he groaned in pain and freed her.

  Scrambling from his lap, she tossed her tangled hair behind her shoulders and glared at him. "How dare you?" she snarled.

  "What the hell do you mean?" He cradled his injured finger with his other hand, staring at her as though she'd just appeared from the bowels of the same hell she'd contemplated a few minutes ago. "I wasn't daring a damned thing that you weren't willing for me to do!"

  She inched her chin forward and propped her fists on her hips. "I'll tell you what you dared to do, you...you scum! You used every trick in the book — every part of you from those damned whiskey eyes to that...that...you know what I'm talking about. You made me lose my mind and forget my morals. You had me thinking you were the most special man I'd ever had the pleasure of kissing — of letting touch me."

  She ignored the dark scowl gathering on his face, waving one hand in the air. "And then you turned your back on me! As though I were some tart you'd picked up to have a little fun with for a few minutes and...."

  Jake surged from the chair, jerking her against him. She squealed in protest and tried to batter his chest again, but he caught her hands and pulled them behind her. Securing her wrists in one of his hands, he cupped her hip to hold her and glared down at her.

  "And just how many other men have you had the pleasure of letting kiss and touch you?"

  The murderous glower on his face made her mouth go dry, and she closed her eyes to block out the sight. Shaking her head, she tried to force words out, but they couldn't bypass the clog of panic in her throat. What had she done? The Jake who held her now was the same one she'd seen unleashed at Mary's ranch. And her goading had liberated the caged tiger beneath his civilized facade.

  Interspersed with her panic, however, came another thought. She slit an eyelid to examine his face yet again. One corner of her mouth curved all on its own, and she opened her eyes fully, tilting her head back far enough to stare directly at him.

  "Why Ranger Cameron," she mused. "I do believe your eyes are jealous green now. And they used to be such a lovely whiskey brown."

  Jake held his glower for a slow count to five, but he pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and clenched it tightly. His chest heaved once with what could have been a suppressed chuckle. The next heave definitely preceded a loud guffaw and Jake dropped her wrists. Pulling her to him, he buried his face on her neck, shoulders shaking with laughter beneath the arms she wrapped around him.

  "There, there," she murmured, patting his back. "We all have those spasms of jealousy now and then."

  A squeak of dismay cut off her chuckles as he sat down and gathered her onto his lap again. Tongue in the side of her cheek and finger on her lips as she waited to see what he would say next, she studied him worriedly. He shook his head, a curl of black silk falling across his forehead, and she tentatively reached up to push it back in place.

  "You're way too wise for your age, Sunny," he said, catching her hand and enfolding it with his. "How'd you know I was so jealous at the thought of another man touching you that I was ready to kill him?"

  "I...I was only hoping, Jake. Taking a chance. My mother taught me to be honest, and a few minutes ago, I honestly thought there was something more happening between us than just lust. But if you'd laughed in my face, it would have devastated me."

  "Let me assure you, Sunny, that lust is definitely a part of it." Her face started to crumble, but Jake tipped her chin up with the back of his hand. "I said part of it, darling. A part I'm starting to think could culminate in the type of mind-shattering passion a man and woman only dream of having."

  "And what's the rest of it?" she whispered.

  "The rest of it is the problem," he admitted, his flat voice sending her heart sinking. "I could never make love to a woman like you and walk away from it unscathed, Sunny. You're a woman a man builds his dreams with — not one he loves and leaves."

  She slowly nodded her head. "And I guess you're a man without dreams."

  "That's right. Or at least not the type of dreams that include being tied down with a wife and family."

  Pursing her lips, Sunny continued nodding her head. "I understand completely, Jake." She scooted from his lap and stood. As she readjusted her robe, she said, "That's all I'll ever ask of you, Jake. To be completely honest with me. We'll only be friends, all right? I mean, after all, we'll be running into each other practically all the time in a town this size, and it would be hard not to talk to each other now and then. So since there's no future in it, you can forget all about your jealousy and any more kissing between us."

  Sticking out her hand, she said, "I'm glad we had this discussion. Let's shake on it."

  "Shake on it?" he growled, quirking a raven brow.

  "Yes." She firmly shoved her hand forward another inch. "Isn't that what two mature people do after they've come to a mature decision about something? We've just admitted there's an attraction between us, but there's no future in that attraction. You're only killing time here until you can move on, and I need to be careful of my reputation — not only for myself, but for Teddy's sake. Now that we both understand the situation, it should be a fairly simple matter for us to just be friends — to realize it's just an attraction with no prospect to it."

  Jake gave her hand a quick shake. Inadvertently, she supposed, his fingertips brushed her palm when he withdrew and her shoulders jerked in reaction to the pleasurable sensation. She rubbed her hand against her thigh, quickly ceasing when his eyes centered on the movement.

  "Well," she croaked. Clearing her throat, she said, "Well, I need to get Teddy home. You'll let me know if you find out anything else about who could have set the fire, won't you?"

  "Yes."

  "All right. I...I better go get Teddy."

  "You've already said that. Go get her, and I'll meet you out front to escort you home."

  "All right. I'm glad we've made this mature decision."

  "Yeah."

  "Um...uh...just how mature are you, Jake? You never said."

  "I'm thirty-two," he growled.

  "Oh, my," she murmured. "Fourteen years older than I am. Yes, we've definitely made the right decision. You're probably set in your ways by now and have no desire to change."

  "Go get Teddy!" he snarled.

  She whirled and ran. She made it safely clear of the building this time, skidding to a halt beside the batwings doors to Ginny's. Leaning against the wall she drew in several deep breaths and
waited for her racing heart to calm, feeling as though she'd made a narrow escape from an extremely dangerous predicament.

  She had unleashed the tiger in him again, and she had just barely managed to avoid being trapped by being foolish enough to think the animal wasn't dangerous — that she might have a chance to tame him. People in town had warned her, and she wouldn't forget to be wary again.

  She straightened and brushed back her tangled hair. Pushing open the batwings, she scanned the saloon for Ginny. Knowing the other woman probably had Teddy in her office at the rear, she walked on through the room. The men inside quieted as she passed, and she glanced in the mirror over the bar, realizing what a wreck she was — soot-stained clothing and fly-away hair. Even smudges of ash on her face, except...she peered a little closer to her reflection. Except around her extremely clean mouth, which pouted as though yearning for something. Or perhaps it pouted in satisfaction of being sufficiently kissed.

  A man nearby muttered something about fire, and she distractedly answered him. "The fire's completely out."

  He threw back his head and guffawed loudly. Sunny tossed him an exasperated glare, recalling the idiot in the street a while ago who had insinuated there was a different sort of flame still burning — one between her and Jake. This was a different man, and he helped once in a while with the repairs on the Center so she didn't want to alienate him. She sniffed haughtily, however, as she deliberately bypassed him without deigning to speak again.

  He didn't know she and Jake had effectively quenched any flames between them just now. He'd find out soon enough, and the town would settle on some other gossip on which to chew.

  After almost silently escorting Sunny and Teddy home and seeing them safe inside the house, Jake strode over to the stable. Grabbing his tack from the storage room, he headed for the corral to saddle Dusty. The stallion caught his tension, prancing and sidling around until Jake swore at him in exasperation and tied him to a rail. After he jerked the belly cinch tight, he left the horse to settle down and stalked to John Dougherty's small house behind the stable. He pounded on the door until John opened it, peering at Jake in annoyance.